


and i have loved the winter, loved the specter

by Junkyard_Rose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, difficult situations and complicated relationships, post episode 25, what to do when half your friends get kidnapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 06:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15236946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Junkyard_Rose/pseuds/Junkyard_Rose
Summary: The first snowfall catches them out in the open, exposed and exhausted, in the middle of a field of tough yellow-brown grass and stubborn weeds. The cart’s finally given up the ghost.Caleb tortures a man in the next town they pass through.





	and i have loved the winter, loved the specter

**Author's Note:**

> I typed ‘campire’ instead of camp fire so many times. new cryptid: vampire that just fuckign loves to camp. anyway epidode 25 huh. 
> 
> warning for: scene wherein an NPC gets tortured. it's not tagged b/c it's not super graphic, but like. it's there. skip "'You best keep your purple friend close,'” to “Molly went to take a bath.” to avoid. no tieflings were harmed in the making of this transformative work.

The first snowfall catches them out in the open, exposed and exhausted, in the middle of a field of tough yellow-brown grass and stubborn weeds. The cart’s finally given up the ghost.

“Back axel’s snapped nearly in half,” Nott says, frowning somewhere behind her thick scarf. There’s been a bitter chill in the air for days. “Can we fix that?”

“We can try,” Mollymauk says, rooting around in his pack, and then – his head jerks up, suddenly, and Caleb’s heart lurches in his chest, sudden anxiety rising in his throat, and then he watches another snowflake drift down, absent-mindedly reaches a hand out to catch it, feel it melt.

“What is _that_?” Mollymauk says, and Beauregard looks up from where she’s poking under the cart.

“It’s snowing?” she says, and, “Fuck.”

Caleb squints at Mollymauk. “Have you not seen snow before?” he asks, reaching up to swipe at another snowflake. It’s starting slow but it’s thickening up, he realises. They’ve got maybe an hour until dusk.

“I’ve heard of it,” Mollymauk says. He hasn’t smiled, really, truly, since Yasha and Jester and Fjord – all his laughter is wooden, all his flirtation is half-arsed, none of his conman’s grins touch his eyes – but there’s something like wonder on his face. Something sad, too, Caleb thinks. “It’s so cold,” he says, quietly.

“Ja,” Caleb says, thinks about playing in it as a child, making angels in the snow, the way his father fussed over protecting their vegetable garden from the frost. “We should find a place to set camp,” he says, “Sooner rather than later. We’ll need a fire.”

* * *

It happened like this:

Caleb woke up with the sun beginning to peak over the trees from the east, needing to take a piss. The camp fire had burned down to charcoal sometime in the night and there was no one keeping watch; that was irresponsible, he thought, annoyed, as he stepped into the woods. Beauregard had volunteered for third watch, he recalled, and Yasha had said she take it with her. Even if they were – it was no reason to abandon watch, he thought, but nothing at come through the silver thread, although Beau and Yasha leaving the camp to go make out in the woods wouldn’t have set it off, anyway.

Halfway back to camp he tripped over Yasha’s sword, lying half-hidden in the grass, the blade stained red-brown with drying blood.

By the time he got back to camp the others had raised the alarm that Fjord and Jester were gone.

* * *

They get the tents pitched, a reasonable fire going. The little grove of trees gives them some cover from the falling snow but there’s already a white blanket stretched across the hard, uneven ground. Finding dry firewood had been a bastard of a job.

Jester would have been playing in the snow, Caleb thinks, and feels something like an ache in his chest. He imagines her dragging them all into it, starting a snow fight maybe, like they’d done when he was little. He remembers Astrid, queen of every snow fort since they were eight years old. If Jester were here – Mollymauk would not be sitting so quiet and still, staring up at the night sky. Beauregard would probably pack a mean snowball, Caleb thinks. Instead, she’s running her throwing stars across the flat of a whetstone, carefully sharpening each and every little prong. Every now and then she presses her thumb against the blade to test the sharpness, drawing tiny spots of blood.

* * *

They haven’t been sleeping well, none of them, since that morning. They take watch in pairs, no slacking off, no falling asleep, no leaving the perimeters of the camp after dark for any reason. The cold’s a factor, too; Caleb spends too many nights shivering, even curled up with Nott inside the warmth of the tent.

He begins to notice Mollymauk’s lips take on a blue tinge after the second day of snow. His gaudy coat is useless against the damp chill, Caleb supposes, and takes the cloak from around his own shoulders to drape it over Mollymauk. It’s brown and dull and it probably reeks, Caleb thinks, wincing at himself, but Mollymauk sinks into it, warm from Caleb’s body, and presses into Caleb’s side for a moment.

“Won’t you be cold?” Mollymauk asks, even as he gratefully pulls it around himself.

“I have my coat,” Caleb point outs. Even as old and frayed as it is, it’s weathered him through harsher colds than this. The sheepskin lining has held, the patched wool outer. Caleb had escaped the asylum in the winter, he recalls, barefoot in the snow in his thin white undershirt. He remembers the kiss of frostbite, and he reaches over to tug the hood up over Molly’s head as far as he can, mindful of his jewellery.

* * *

Caleb tortures a man in the next town they pass through. It’s been six days since they woke up and found half of them gone.

Before that, Caleb writes a letter to the Gentleman. Tells him three of their number have been taken in the night, tells him that if he wants his mission in Shady Creek Run completed he’d best send the Tabaxi woman as soon as possible. Sends it off with a grubby messenger on a lanky horse, gold pressed into her hand.

“It is of the _upmost_ importance,” Caleb tells her urgently, watches her gallop out of town. It’s a hungry town – worn thin by a poor harvest and an early winter, every resource drained low by the Empire’s war. Caleb returns to their inn and finds a bar brawl.

It’s Beauregard, well on her way to drunk in the middle of the afternoon, gritting her teeth as she uses her staff to block the swing of a short sword. Metal bites into wood and as the sword’s yanked back Beau’s staff goes with it; she catches her opponent in in the side of the head with a left hook that makes Caleb wince from across the room. It’s a human man, her opponent; as dirty and travel-stained as they are, a ratty snarl of long hair, panic on his face as he swings back at her.

Caleb’s not surprised when a bolt catches the man in the side of his kneecap and he folds like an empty sack, gasps out something that might be a surrender. Nott, perched half-hidden on the staircase, fires again anyway, catches the man in the shoulder as he finishes slumping over. The bar’s mostly empty, thank the fucking gods, just the barkeep hanging back, wide-eyed, barely more than a youth.

“Hallo, Nott,” Caleb says, wearily. “Beauregard. What was that?”

“He said,” Beau huffs, presses a hand against her ribs, winces, “he said, about Molly, he said –“

* * *

“‘You best keep your purple friend close,’” Caleb repeats, as their new acquaintance drifts back into consciousness, “’Keep him close because there’s some that would pay a pretty penny for a devil like that. The goblin too, might be.’ That is what you said to my monk friend, ja?”

Their new acquaintance tugs at his bonds, but Nott’s knots hold secure. Beau is downstairs, bribing the barkeep, possibly getting more drunk in the process. Caleb has this – this vile man tied to the food of his rented bed.

“Let me the fuck go,” he says, and, “Mercy, I’m bleeding, there’s _arrows_ in me –“

“You won’t walk again unless you get that seen to by a very good healer, very soon,” Caleb tells him, emotionless, nudging his impaled kneecap with a boot toe. A strangled groan of pain bubbles out of this man’s throat. “I would suggest you speak quickly.”

He’d told Nott to go check on Beauregard, see to her injuries as best they could. He was glad of that, now. This was not something she needed to see.

“Fuck,” this man says, “I was just – she started it, man, she –“

“I’m not interested in your motivations, I want to know these people you speak of,” Caleb tells him, sharp, presses down on his knee, just a little. “ _Who_ would pay for a tiefling? Why?”

“I don’t know,” this man bites out, half a sob, “I just, all I heard was – there’s people starving, man, and all I heard was there’s gold in alive and intact unusual sorta folk, tieflings and that, I haven’t, I never, I swear –“

Caleb grinds down hard, without at all meaning to. This man screams, throws his head back, tries to press back away from Caleb, straining against the ropes. Caleb hears Nott’s bolt snap, as if from very far away.

“Would these people pay for a half-orc?” Caleb asks, cutting through the scream, the struggling. “Would they pay for an angel?”

“Yes, yes, fuck,” this man says, “Fuck you. Yes.”

* * *

“Molly went to take a bath, before all that,” Nott tells him, after Caleb comes back down stairs, “He’s not back yet. What did that man say?”

“Not a lot. Maybe something useful,” Caleb tells her, “I, I let him go. I will tell you, later, I want to –“ he pauses. “Is Beau okay?”

“Bit banged up,” Nott wrings her hands, pats her mask to make sure it’s in place. “Nothing broken. Are _you_ okay?”

“Ja,” Caleb says. He feels – nothing, which is as close to okay as he can imagine. “I am going to go check in on Mollymauk, okay?”

“Okay,” Nott repeats. “Message if you get into trouble, or if you need me at all, for any reason.”

“I will,” he says, pats her shoulder, nods at Beauregard as he leaves, nursing a mug of something strong-smelling at the bar.

* * *

“So what’s our next move?” Beauregard asks scratches a blunt nail across the tabletop, taps the wood. She’s sobered up some in the last few hours, with Mollymauk’s help, but she’s restless.

“I sent the message to Zadash,” Caleb tells her, “but with the weather it could be two weeks, maybe more, before it gets there.”

“So we go after these guys,” Beau’s voice is loud, rough. “We go looking for that dick’s source of gossip, information, whatever, we track those pricks down, we –“

“I think we should keep pushing for Shady Creek Run,” Caleb tells them.

“Why the _hell,_ ” Beau begins, frustrated, taught as a bowstring, until Nott reaches for her bruised knuckles with her small, clawed hand, and gently clasps Beau’s.

Nott says, gently, “Let him explain. Why, Caleb?”

Caleb takes a breath. “I think if there is a, a trafficking ring in the North, the Empire’s most lawless corner would be where to find it, if we are going to find it.” He scrubs a hand over his face, exhales. “I also think the Gentleman is not someone we should be making angry, if at all avoidable.”

Molly bites his lip with the tip of a fang, scrubs a hand across his face. “As much as I hate to say it,” he laughs a little, hollow, “I want to agree with Beau, I really do, I want to go hunting, I want to _hurt_ some people, shit, but,” he rubs at the base of a horn. “I can recognise that Caleb’s right. There’s no point chasing after rumours when the Gentleman’s got a far better way of tracking them down than we do, but that maybe only if we keep him onside.”

“I’m with you,” Nott tells Caleb, steadily, and he thinks about how much he hates this, having them look at him like they think he could be some kind of leader, and about how much he misses Yasha’s quiet comforting presence and Jester’s animated smile and Fjord’s steady leadership, and god, what if, what if –

Beau hisses through her teeth, and the anger drains out of her, slow, until she’s slumped down into her seat, still gripping onto Nott’s hand. She says, weakly, “When Kree finds them, though, we’re going totally apeshit on these bastards, right?”

“Yes,” Mollymauk says, immediately, and Caleb says, “Ja, of course, of course,” and Nott manages to grin a little, a real smile, even.

“We’re getting them back safe,” Nott says, and squeezes Beau’s hand.

* * *

They had to leave the cart in that field, slowly gathering a covering of snow. Nott’s better with horses now, but she still chooses to ride behind Caleb, watching their backs. They’re still moving north, pressing forward.

Nott speaks, quietly, hesitantly, her claws grasping the back of his coat for balance. “I know this is a, um, a terrible situation,” she says. “I know things we have to do, that you have to do, are and will continue to be, you know, bad things.” She presses her head against his back. “I thought you were gone too, you know. That morning. We woke up, and Yasha was gone, and Fjord was gone, and Jester was gone, and your bed roll was empty.”

She makes a little noise like she’s in pain and Caleb echoes it back. “You came back, though,” Nott continues, “Don’t forget, okay? Don’t forget who you’ve become, and how good and kind that person is. Don’t go down a path I can’t follow.”

There’s snow falling again, melting in his hair. “I won’t,” he says. “I, I promise you, I will remember. I will stay.”


End file.
